Monday, October 11, 2004
Soul Peace - Environmental Peace
From 1995 - 1996 I worked for the U.S. Interim Census effort as an administrative assistant, which meant I largely stayed in the office fielding calls, organizing the dispatch of field workers and participating in the initial compilation of the statistics being collected in the huge tablets used by the door-to-door Census takers. Because the door-to-door job was the type that attracted a certain type of personality, absenteeism was a rare occurrence. One day, though, one of our star field workers called in sick, saying that she'd had to put down her beloved dog the day before and needed a day to "register the loss". I reported her absence to her supervisor, a no-nonsense woman from a stalwart truck-farming family in the southeast valley. She scoffed. Being one of two heads of a family with a variety of working and family pets, all of whom she insisted were beloved, she felt the woman was "going overboard" in her reaction to her pet's death and was probably using it as an excuse for an extra day off. The Director of the Arizona Interim Census effort disagreed, luckily, and disallowed the supervisor from firing her. "Give her the day," I remember him saying. "It'll take her longer than that to come to terms with her dog's death. She's doing us a favor by taking off only one day. She doesn't need to be harassed about it."
My reaction, at the time, was reserved. The truth is, I could see the supervisor's point, having been raised by a woman whose spirit was much like hers: Pets die. People die. The rest of us continue until we die. Get over it and move on or life will leave you behind. I could also hear the extreme sadness choking the census taker's voice and knew that she wasn't "faking it". I had not, though, ever experienced the loss or death of a pet that had temporarily paralyzed me, so I was glad I was not in the position to make a determination about whether to keep an employee based on her reaction to the death of a pet.
Now, I understand what that field worker was experiencing. Within 24 hours of my optimistic pronouncement, here, that I was taking The Big Girl's death well, sadness began slamming me square across the chest repeatedly and unpredictably. It has affected everything in my life including the way I've ordered our days since last Tuesday, my attitude toward everything that comes across my path, the way I relate to everyone in my life, including my mother. I have been caught completely by surprise by my reactions to this sweet, shy cat's death. It has been especially difficult for me to "process" (as MFASRF puts it) The Big Girl's death, since I live with a woman who is not prone to grief and is at a stage in her life when the past disappears as quickly as a minute, the future is non-existent and the present and what it contains is the only reality. Still, I find that I'm not at all bound to apologize to anyone for the way this death is affecting me. I made the decision, last Thursday, not to push myself, even though my loss of energy and sense of emotional isolation have ordered our small(er) family's days since then. I have, for instance, allowed my mother to sleep as much as she wants and continued the temporary cancellation of her therapy exercises which began when I realized that, between our every-other-day trips to Mesa and negotiating The Big Girl's sudden and extreme illness and care I needed to steal time, here and there, from what had previously been daily routines to deep breathe myself back to a shaky sense of competence over those routines that were absolutely necessary. The many activities that suffered were also the taking of my mother's stats (pretty much taken twice rather than three times a day), the bubbly encouragement and attention usually paid to my mother and my frequent reporting on my mother and me in the variety of journals I've set up here for that purpose.
The only circumstance that seems not to have flagged, that has, in fact, developed at a soul enhancing rate, is a sense that we are now, finally, at home, at our only home. "Environmental Peace" is what I called it in a recent e to a business associate in the Valley with whom I've had to negotiate the return of pulmonary equipment since our switch for convenience, 4 weeks ago, to a local provider. A couple of days ago, while applying myself without resistance to a need to reset and reorder this Prescott house, I realized, with much internal satisfaction, that I am finally "making a home" for us and seeing to it that we settle in.
Previous to our sale of the Mesa home, despite my life long belief that "home" is a spiritual quality, not a physical place, homemaking for my mother, our cats and me was undermined by a constant need to keep the one home and our eventual move to it on my mental back burner while negotiating our living in the other. As soon as we touched base in one area, I'd begin cataloging all the items and circumstances that would, in six months or so, need to be once again transferred and handling life in the one to make sure the upcoming, inevitable move went as smoothly as possible. I don't have to do this, anymore. The relief is beyond what I experienced during the consolidation. I am a newly reinitiated homemaker and head of household, positions I realized I haven't held for 10 years. I am infused with a sense of power over our lives which is making it both easy and satisfying for me to finally direct our home and my mother's care and affairs with a startling confidence I never thought would be available to me.
I continue to be very sad that The Big Girl isn't here to reap the benefits of my newfound ownership over our life. I know she would have appreciated it, especially since, having been the very sick cat that she was (post mortem results to follow) she suffered the most from the month long upheaval that was necessary to complete the consolidation. But, even in the depths of my continued sadness over her death and absence, I'm confident that the environmental peace quickly descending upon our household bodes nothing but good things for us in the future.
Every time, over the past 10 years, we moved from one home to another, at the end of the move my mother would make a sturdy pronouncement in which I have been unable to share until now: "It feels good to be home."
Yes it does, finally, yes, it feels wonderful for me. I know that it will feel wonderful to our home, too, for us to be here with a sense of place, peace and permanence that have eluded me, and, thus, in one way or another, my immediate family for much too long.
The Big Girl's Post Mortem (for those of you who are as familiar with the furry members of our household as you are with my mother and me)
Our vet asked, just prior to The Big Girl's euthanasia, to be allowed to "respectfully" do a post mortem on her, to which I enthusiastically agreed. The results were sobering. The Big Girl's pancreas was so shriveled and dissolute as to be non-existent. Her liver was not nearly as fatty as the vet suspected but definitely and most likely permanently inflamed. The only treatment for a non-functioning pancreas and a challenged liver is prednizone, which, in a diabetic, whether cat or human, is extremely problematic. My decision, our vet confirmed, to euthanize The Big Girl, was a wise one. There was very little hope that she would have been able, even with treatment, to withstand her illness for very much longer. As well, considering how quickly she died from the overdose of anesthetic administered to activate her death, it was almost certain that she would not have survived the operation to insert the feeding tube. The Big Girl was much, much closer to death than either the vet or I suspected.
My immediate reaction to this news, knowing that "stress" is one of the causes of pancreatitis in cats, was that The Big Girl had, throughout her life, literally stressed herself to death. The vet immediately disavowed me of this notion. The origin, she said, of this type of pancreatitis in cats is of unknown origin but not attributable to chronic stress. The Big Girl did absolutely live with this condition throughout her life. When I told the vet that, even so, I wish I had taken The Big Girl's vomiting more seriously earlier, she told me that, considering that The Big Girl's heart and lungs were fine at the time of her death and all other significators (her appetite, her sense of thirst, her energy level, the condition of her teeth, her diet, her ability to negotiate life in our home, her shyness and sense of disruption every time we had a visitors and, as well, her vomiting, which, despite its frequency always contained hairballs and was well within the range of a cat who exhibits stress vomiting) were normal. Thus, until she exhibited exactly the symptoms which signaled to me that she immediately needed intensive medical treatment, even the vet would not have recommended anything more (a blood panel, for instance, which would have alerted us to her physical problems but which is not normal procedure) during her "well cat" vet visits.
I did, however, immediately take The Little Girl in for a complete blood panel to discover whether she is harboring any silent condition that could develop mortal problems later. I have no reason to suspect this is true but, well, once burned twice shy. We have not yet received the results. I expect, tomorrow, to learn that The Little Girl is in fine shape and will be with us for a long time to come. In the meantime, The Little Girl is reveling in her position as undisputed Queen of the Household, with deference to the Senior Honorary Cat Queen Mother, Mom.
I am planning on reinstating my mother's exercise therapy sessions either today or tomorrow, depending on the trajectory of her recovery from yet another urinary tract infection (more on that later). I broke a bone in one of my toes the night before last jamming it accidentally into one of the pieces of furniture I was moving, but I seem to not be experiencing any debilitation and only a little pain when I insist on wiggling my toes. We are all looking forward to a visit with MPS and her daughter beginning later this week and extending through the weekend. The Big Girl remains a blessing presence in our household, I'm still experiencing waves of sadness, alone among the members of our family, and, overall, life here is beginning to straighten from the severe twists we recently experienced. To those of you who count on my regular, almost daily reports to keep you informed of how my mother and the rest of us are doing, I apologize for the break, but expect everything to settle into a new, energetically peaceful normal shortly.
Sooner than later.
My reaction, at the time, was reserved. The truth is, I could see the supervisor's point, having been raised by a woman whose spirit was much like hers: Pets die. People die. The rest of us continue until we die. Get over it and move on or life will leave you behind. I could also hear the extreme sadness choking the census taker's voice and knew that she wasn't "faking it". I had not, though, ever experienced the loss or death of a pet that had temporarily paralyzed me, so I was glad I was not in the position to make a determination about whether to keep an employee based on her reaction to the death of a pet.
Now, I understand what that field worker was experiencing. Within 24 hours of my optimistic pronouncement, here, that I was taking The Big Girl's death well, sadness began slamming me square across the chest repeatedly and unpredictably. It has affected everything in my life including the way I've ordered our days since last Tuesday, my attitude toward everything that comes across my path, the way I relate to everyone in my life, including my mother. I have been caught completely by surprise by my reactions to this sweet, shy cat's death. It has been especially difficult for me to "process" (as MFASRF puts it) The Big Girl's death, since I live with a woman who is not prone to grief and is at a stage in her life when the past disappears as quickly as a minute, the future is non-existent and the present and what it contains is the only reality. Still, I find that I'm not at all bound to apologize to anyone for the way this death is affecting me. I made the decision, last Thursday, not to push myself, even though my loss of energy and sense of emotional isolation have ordered our small(er) family's days since then. I have, for instance, allowed my mother to sleep as much as she wants and continued the temporary cancellation of her therapy exercises which began when I realized that, between our every-other-day trips to Mesa and negotiating The Big Girl's sudden and extreme illness and care I needed to steal time, here and there, from what had previously been daily routines to deep breathe myself back to a shaky sense of competence over those routines that were absolutely necessary. The many activities that suffered were also the taking of my mother's stats (pretty much taken twice rather than three times a day), the bubbly encouragement and attention usually paid to my mother and my frequent reporting on my mother and me in the variety of journals I've set up here for that purpose.
The only circumstance that seems not to have flagged, that has, in fact, developed at a soul enhancing rate, is a sense that we are now, finally, at home, at our only home. "Environmental Peace" is what I called it in a recent e to a business associate in the Valley with whom I've had to negotiate the return of pulmonary equipment since our switch for convenience, 4 weeks ago, to a local provider. A couple of days ago, while applying myself without resistance to a need to reset and reorder this Prescott house, I realized, with much internal satisfaction, that I am finally "making a home" for us and seeing to it that we settle in.
Previous to our sale of the Mesa home, despite my life long belief that "home" is a spiritual quality, not a physical place, homemaking for my mother, our cats and me was undermined by a constant need to keep the one home and our eventual move to it on my mental back burner while negotiating our living in the other. As soon as we touched base in one area, I'd begin cataloging all the items and circumstances that would, in six months or so, need to be once again transferred and handling life in the one to make sure the upcoming, inevitable move went as smoothly as possible. I don't have to do this, anymore. The relief is beyond what I experienced during the consolidation. I am a newly reinitiated homemaker and head of household, positions I realized I haven't held for 10 years. I am infused with a sense of power over our lives which is making it both easy and satisfying for me to finally direct our home and my mother's care and affairs with a startling confidence I never thought would be available to me.
I continue to be very sad that The Big Girl isn't here to reap the benefits of my newfound ownership over our life. I know she would have appreciated it, especially since, having been the very sick cat that she was (post mortem results to follow) she suffered the most from the month long upheaval that was necessary to complete the consolidation. But, even in the depths of my continued sadness over her death and absence, I'm confident that the environmental peace quickly descending upon our household bodes nothing but good things for us in the future.
Every time, over the past 10 years, we moved from one home to another, at the end of the move my mother would make a sturdy pronouncement in which I have been unable to share until now: "It feels good to be home."
Yes it does, finally, yes, it feels wonderful for me. I know that it will feel wonderful to our home, too, for us to be here with a sense of place, peace and permanence that have eluded me, and, thus, in one way or another, my immediate family for much too long.
The Big Girl's Post Mortem (for those of you who are as familiar with the furry members of our household as you are with my mother and me)
Our vet asked, just prior to The Big Girl's euthanasia, to be allowed to "respectfully" do a post mortem on her, to which I enthusiastically agreed. The results were sobering. The Big Girl's pancreas was so shriveled and dissolute as to be non-existent. Her liver was not nearly as fatty as the vet suspected but definitely and most likely permanently inflamed. The only treatment for a non-functioning pancreas and a challenged liver is prednizone, which, in a diabetic, whether cat or human, is extremely problematic. My decision, our vet confirmed, to euthanize The Big Girl, was a wise one. There was very little hope that she would have been able, even with treatment, to withstand her illness for very much longer. As well, considering how quickly she died from the overdose of anesthetic administered to activate her death, it was almost certain that she would not have survived the operation to insert the feeding tube. The Big Girl was much, much closer to death than either the vet or I suspected.
My immediate reaction to this news, knowing that "stress" is one of the causes of pancreatitis in cats, was that The Big Girl had, throughout her life, literally stressed herself to death. The vet immediately disavowed me of this notion. The origin, she said, of this type of pancreatitis in cats is of unknown origin but not attributable to chronic stress. The Big Girl did absolutely live with this condition throughout her life. When I told the vet that, even so, I wish I had taken The Big Girl's vomiting more seriously earlier, she told me that, considering that The Big Girl's heart and lungs were fine at the time of her death and all other significators (her appetite, her sense of thirst, her energy level, the condition of her teeth, her diet, her ability to negotiate life in our home, her shyness and sense of disruption every time we had a visitors and, as well, her vomiting, which, despite its frequency always contained hairballs and was well within the range of a cat who exhibits stress vomiting) were normal. Thus, until she exhibited exactly the symptoms which signaled to me that she immediately needed intensive medical treatment, even the vet would not have recommended anything more (a blood panel, for instance, which would have alerted us to her physical problems but which is not normal procedure) during her "well cat" vet visits.
I did, however, immediately take The Little Girl in for a complete blood panel to discover whether she is harboring any silent condition that could develop mortal problems later. I have no reason to suspect this is true but, well, once burned twice shy. We have not yet received the results. I expect, tomorrow, to learn that The Little Girl is in fine shape and will be with us for a long time to come. In the meantime, The Little Girl is reveling in her position as undisputed Queen of the Household, with deference to the Senior Honorary Cat Queen Mother, Mom.
I am planning on reinstating my mother's exercise therapy sessions either today or tomorrow, depending on the trajectory of her recovery from yet another urinary tract infection (more on that later). I broke a bone in one of my toes the night before last jamming it accidentally into one of the pieces of furniture I was moving, but I seem to not be experiencing any debilitation and only a little pain when I insist on wiggling my toes. We are all looking forward to a visit with MPS and her daughter beginning later this week and extending through the weekend. The Big Girl remains a blessing presence in our household, I'm still experiencing waves of sadness, alone among the members of our family, and, overall, life here is beginning to straighten from the severe twists we recently experienced. To those of you who count on my regular, almost daily reports to keep you informed of how my mother and the rest of us are doing, I apologize for the break, but expect everything to settle into a new, energetically peaceful normal shortly.
Sooner than later.
